Semiconductor devices are used in a variety of electronic applications, such as personal computers, cell phones, digital cameras, and other electronic equipment. Semiconductor devices are typically fabricated by sequentially depositing insulating or dielectric layers, conductive layers, and semiconductive layers of material over a semiconductor substrate, and patterning the various material layers using lithography to form circuit components and elements thereon.
One of the important drivers for increased performance in the semiconductor devices is the higher levels of integration of circuits. This is accomplished by miniaturizing or shrinking device sizes on a given chip. Ion implant is a critical technology in the fabrication of semiconductor devices. Ion implanters are typically used for performing ion implantation processes. The ion implanters are used to provide doping for semiconductor devices, such that atoms are introduced to change the electrical properties of semiconductor materials.
However, although existing ion implant processes have been generally adequate for their intended purposes, as device scaling-down continues, they have not been entirely satisfactory in all respects.